364 PUNCTUATION
In the following clear case of antithesis a colon would
have been more according to modern usage than the semi-
colon.
As apart from our requirements Mr. Arnold-Forster's schemes have many
merits; in relation to them they have very few.—Times.
It now only remains, before leaving actual stops for the
dash, hyphen, quotation mark, and bracket, to comment on a
few stray cases of ambiguity, false scent, and ill-judged stop-
ping. We have not hunted up, and shall not manufacture,
any of the patent absurdities that are amusing but unprofit-
able. The sort of ambiguity that most needs guarding
against is that which allows a sleepy reader to take the words
wrong when the omission or insertion of a stop would have
saved him.
The chief agitators of the League, who have—not unnaturally considering
the favours showered upon them in the past—a high sense of their own
importance . ..—Times.
With no comma after unnaturally the first thought is that
the agitators not unnaturally consider; second thoughts put
it right; but second thoughts should never be expected from
a reader.
Simultaneously extensive reclamation of land and harbour improvements
are in progress at Chemulpo and Fusan.—Times.
With no .comma after the first word, the sleepy reader is set
wondering what simultaneously extensive means, and whether
it is journalese for equally extensive.
But Anne and I did, for we had played there all our lives—at least, all
the years we had spent together and the rest do not count in the story.
When Anne and I came together we began to live*—CROCKETT.
A comma after together would save us from adding the two
sets of years to each other. In the next piece, on the other
hand, the uncomfortable comma after gold is apparently
meant to warn us quite unnecessarily that here and there
belongs to the verb.
Flecks of straw-coloured gold, here and there lay upon it, where the
sunshine touched the bent of last year.—CROCKETT.